


Justice | Just Us

by orphan_account



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1332589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By day, enemies set against the other by the tangled politics of separate Clans. By night, allies bonded by the sisterhood of the <em>mahou shoujo</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Justice | Just Us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "may fan mahou shoujo. go. do it." I haven't said what their wishes are just yet, because while I've already decided May's, I'm still musing over the _exact_ terms of Lan Fan's.
> 
> May and Lan Fan's powers call homage to both the mahou shoujo that originally bore their colours and to their actual powers in-story, with a twist. The witch, by the way, is based off of a character from the 2003 anime. And a reference to everyone's favourite overanalysed overuse animu and mango, NGE. [tips hat]
> 
> Unedited due to length. Enjoy, and thank you for reading!

Clouds of condensed darkness roll overhead. Familiars flit through the halfway congealed skies, strange black crystals puffed in coal dust that blaze into hallucinated flames. Musical notes shriek amid the perpetual twilight realm; moths of white and black alternatively crawl along the ground as if unable to fly.

The women step out like a pair of moon risen over the horizon. May closes her hands around a pink bow shaped of a heart to notch an arrow tipped with the visage of a panda towards her mark and feels the weight of the five-pointed star at the crown of her head, spanning across both nexuses of braids where the headdress of the Empress would belong. Lan Fan lifts the feathered knives that glimmer with a saffron lightning—sparks of energy ribboning through the darkness to choke the grief before it can slip into their souls—and leaps forward, rustling the extended fabric wings of gold on her back that curl outwards; the teardrop-shape of yin encased in amber glows at her throat.

May aims. Lan Fan dodges the strike of a coal familiar. Yellow ribbon twists over the nearby dangers, holds them flat and at bay, while May releases the arrow, heaven-sent.

Sears of amaranth follow her magic’s flight. The array of not-quite-alkahestry spins at the projected destination—the projected _fate_ , heavy and sealed and immutable—of the arrow’s point.

Atop a great golden disk inscribed with a twisted transmutation circle that alternates between bright blue and bright red, the clouds above them pulsating in time, a bloated white _thing_ in the vague form of a woman struggles vainly against its entrapments, crucified to a massive lyre whose strings pluck out twisted melodies to the drumline of the transmutation circle’s heartbeat. The alkahestry array springs into life at the twisted thing’s pallid skull-like head bored through with seven eyes.

It explodes. The lyre screams; strings snap; golden disk spins with a high-pitched _shriiill_ that pounds a headache into May’s mind. The head regrows.

“The lyre!” Lan Fan yells. Golden knives between her fingers. When they leave her hands they feather into tiny yellow birds; when they make contact with the witch they burn into shards of cleansing lightning. One by one the strings char, blacken to ash. The golden disk whirls more quickly, more rapidly, until the instrument’s strings are a blur. Lan Fan pelts towards it.

“Lan Fan!”

With one eye on the ribbons that trap the familiars, May raises the bow to eye-level. Another arrow manifests in her palm, this one tipped with a curved yin. The fated array spreads over the witch’s form; for an instant May can see the world seconds into the future—just when the arrow will hit—in a frozen tangle of leylines.

The witch has turned her many-eyed face towards the yellow-clad _mahou shoujo_ who in turn trembles on the very rim of the disk, ribbons already curling into a quartet more of knives at her knuckles.

The lyre seems empty—oh. To the right side, nearly hidden by shadow. A single string remains.

“Lan Fan,” she whispers, her voice euphonic with awe, and releases the arrow.

As the witch destroys itself from the inside out and the labyrinth collapses bodily around them, folding inwards like falling pillars of salt and sand, Lan Fan jumps from the disintegrating platform. May catches her, barely; both fall over onto the ground, bruised and battered and alive.

The grief seed is colder than ice in her palm. May manifests her soul gem, bright amaranth, in her hand, and Lan Fan does the same. Hers tinges dark: She stood directly in the fray, absorbed the majority of the witch’s attacks. The grief seed collects the shadows from both. Lan Fan indicates the grief seed with a nod towards May, who dips her head and pockets it for safekeeping.

Stripped of their magical outfits, the girls seem so small and frail. And yet they will fight a thousand witches no matter the cost.

The two help the injured, about to throw themselves from the rooftops, back home before they collapse themselves into the grass. May watches the horizon while it shifts to pink and then to gold. “Sunrise.”

“Wonderful. We’ve been out all night.”

She reaches over to tickle Lan Fan between the ribs. “That was clever. With the lyre.”

Lan Fan blushes. “You think so?”

“Mmhm.”

Quiet, but a comfortable quiet, born of an innate understanding and an unspoken love. When the sun breaches the skyline the women rise together to their feet as if joined by a single force. “The young lord needs me,” Lan Fan says just as May explains, “Mr Scar and Dr Marcoh are waiting.”

They glance at one another. Laugh, halfway in relief and halfway in joy. Lan Fan is first to ask: “Tonight, again?”

May grips her hand. Nods. Gazes directly into Lan Fan’s eyes, dark and questioning as her ravenous soul. “And every night.”


End file.
